Hazelton

New blog post at Hazelton ~ tales from a miniature town: 

The new project...

Little words of wisdom

 

It's that time of year again!

image from Freepik

It's hard to believe that a whole year has gone by since I was last posting about my annual Christmas pudding-making!  I made half as much again as the original Larkin Christmas Pudding recipe this year, but obviously the method is exactly the same no matter how much you make:

340g/12oz sultanas

340g/12oz raisins

170g/6oz cherries, halved or quartered

227g/8oz finely chopped mixed candied peel

227g/8oz plain flour

1 level teaspoon ground ginger

1 level teaspoon mixed spice

1 level teaspoon nutmeg ~ freshly grated if possible

454g/1lb soft brown sugar

227g/8oz breadcrumbs

284g/10oz shredded suet ~ beef or vegetable, whichever you prefer

6 eggs, beaten

142ml/5fl oz stout, such as Guinness

142ml/5fl oz brandy

grated rind and juice of 1 orange

142ml/5fl oz milk (approximately)

Grease whatever size of pudding basins you would like your finished Christmas puddings to be.  This recipe will make enough to fill four, one pint, pudding basins each one of which will give about six servings.

Put all the dried fruit into a very large bowl, along with the stout, brandy, and the rind/juice of the orange.  Leave to one side.

Sift the flour and spices into another large bowl, then stir in the sugar, breadcrumbs, and suet.  Beat the eggs in a separate bowl. 

Now's the time to work those biceps and start adding the dry ingredients to the wet, three or four spoonfuls at a time, stirring well after each addition.  Last year I made the recipe twice as I was making double the amount of puddings.  This year, as I was "only" making half as much again, I decided to throw caution to the wind and attempt to fit a pint into a half pint pot as it were ~ it wasn't easy, as I'm sure you can imagine 😏 I should have been more sensible, especially as my toe was hurting so much, and I ended up having to sit down for a while every so often.  Anyhoo, I'm sure you would be much more sensible than me my lovelies 😄

Getting back to the recipe, when you get towards the end of the dry ingredients you will have to make a judgement call on how much milk to add.  I find that this varies from year-to-year, depending on how absorbent the dry ingredients happen to be and also if I've slopped in a tad more stout/brandy than I'd intended!  The mixture should be a soft dropping consistency. 

Divide the mixture between your well greased pudding basins.  This year I made one large pudding along with five smaller ones.  As I've told you before I used to faff about with a doubled-up sheet of greaseproof paper, pleated in the centre, to cover the puddings.  A couple of years ago I had a brainwave and used cake tin liners instead, and have continued to use them ever since as it's much easier.  Depending on what I have to hand, I then hold said liner/greaseproof paper in place with either string or an elastic band.  You use whichever method suits you best 😊

I also used to either use a pudding basin net or make a string handle to lift the puddings in and out of the steamer.  Now I just don my trusty rubber washing up gloves as I find it easier.  Just make sure to take care when removing the pudding as the basin will be very hot, and there will also be a lot of steam.

The old aluminium saucepan belonged to my paternal Grandma and it only ever gets used for steaming puddings.  I've had the steamer for donkey's years; the poor thing is a tad battered as it had been dropped a number of times over the years on the quarry tiled floor of our old kitchen!  It's still perfectly serviceable though so I don't see any need to get a new one 😏

Bring the pan of water to the boil and place the pudding, in the steamer, on top; turn the water down to a low simmer.  Depending on the size of basin used, the puddings will take 5 to 7 hours to steam.  I steam my one pint puddings for 6 hours each, and the larger ones for the full 7.  To keep an eye on things, I set my timer for one hour at a time so that I remember to go and check on the water level in the saucepan.  Keep it topped up as necessary with boiling water from the kettle.

At the end of the steaming period, take the pudding from the steamer (remember to take care!) and discard the cake liner/greaseproof paper.  Cover with a clean tea-towel and leave on one side to cool.  

When the pudding is totally cold remove it from the basin, wrap in a double sheet of greaseproof paper or baking parchment, then wrap again tightly in cooking foil.

The puddings should be stored in a cool, dry, place, or they could even be frozen if you'd prefer.  We usually freeze what's left of the pudding we have on Christmas Day.  You'll have to remember to defrost them thoroughly before reheating.  With all the sugar and alcohol in them they should keep well in a cool, dry, place, though.  We have one at Christmas, obviously, but it's also our family tradition to have another at Easter.

When you are ready to eat your Christmas puddings, they can either be gently steamed for about 1 1/2 hours or reheated in the microwave ~ I take the latter route as it's simpler when there's so much other cooking going on.  I really can't tell you how long to reheat the pudding in the microwave as it's very much a trial-and-error process depending on your own particular machine.  I heat the pudding on full power for five minutes, then in short bursts of a minute or so until it is thoroughly hot all the way through.

Serve your pudding with whatever your family likes best: rum/brandy butter, cream, a white (brandy or rum, perhaps) sauce, custard, ice-cream, etc.  We like to have ours with either cream or a white sauce flavoured with brandy.  I make the sauce very simply, rather along the lines of packet-mix custard ~ just substitute cornflour in place of the custard powder and add brandy to taste!

You can tweak this recipe to your heart's content with the proportions and varieties of dried fruit, so long as the total amount remains about the same.  You could also have a little less fruit and add in some nuts.  You can use rum instead of brandy if you would prefer ~ I use brandy as I'm really not keen on rum.  Make the recipe your own by using the fruit (and nuts) that you and your family like to eat.

Enjoy 😊 

Stupid o'clock...

from Clipart Library

I've been awake since before 5am this morning, so by 5.35am I admitted defeat and got up 😒  Sadly for me I am much more of a night owl than an early riser, so methinks I may need a little nap this afternoon 😴  At least I've got the Christmas puddings steaming earlier that I would otherwise have done, I guess!

Probably what has contributed to my interrupted snoozing is that my toe is yet again painful with another flare-up of gout, albeit (like previously) not as severe as that very first attack.  Luckily (?) for me, after a follow-up appointment with my GP to discuss the blood tests I had a couple of weeks back, I have just started another course of Colchicine.  She is a new-to-the-practice GP and is young (to my aged eyes, anyway LOL), keen, and very thorough!  She went through all the "numbers" associated with the blood tests, which quite frankly I cannot now remember in detail, the upshot of which is some good news and some not-so-good news.

On the plus side I am not anaemic, don't have any infections, and have now just dropped back out of the prediabetes zone.  She was happy with my last blood pressure reading ~ 136/80 ~ and that my "chronic kidney disease" is maintaining a level that is satisfactory.  Now this was the very first time that my kidney issues have been referred to as CKD and it came as a little bit of a shock to hear those words to be honest.  However she said that it is often associated with getting older and simply needs to be monitored, and to continue with the medications I am taking to help with the high blood pressure.  With regards to the latter, whilst I am to continue with the Ramipril, she has taken me off Indapamide and prescribed Dapagliflozin instead.

Not so good are the uric acid levels, which are very high.  To treat this my GP has prescribed a lower dose of Colchicine which I am to take for 28 days to "zap" the uric acid, for want of better terminology!  She has also prescribed Febuxostat, which I think I will be taking long-term providing I don't get any unpleasant side-effects.  It's very much a juggling game with medications, isn't it?  What's good for one problem doesn't always play nicely with meds for other conditions, and she had to double-check a number of the options that are available.

Which just leaves the issue of my leaky left leg 😲 Perhaps I should explain 😉

I woke up the Saturday-before-last to a damp patch in the bed ~ nope I hadn't peed myself, it was much further down the bed and my left leg was decidedly wet.  As you can imagine, this was pretty unnerving especially as it continued to leak for much of the day.  However I looked up the symptoms and whilst it obviously wasn't ideal, I didn't feel that I needed to seek urgent treatment.  I put a dressing on the area where it seemed to be leaking from but this was soon soaked through.  I had a brainwave, though, and bandaged a bladder leak pad to said leg which soaked up the leakage very impressively!  At the risk of TMI, whilst I don't actually have a big issue with a weak bladder, at my age I'd rather be safe than sorry and usually slap on a pad when I go out 😏  Thankfully the leaking petered out as the day wore on and it went on my list of things to raise with the GP when I saw her last week.

I did notice that a small area of skin had broken on my lower leg; quite possibly I'd unthinkingly scratched it when my leg was feeling particularly itchy, as I've had Lichen planus for a number of years.  I duly showed my legs to my GP and explained about the leaky left leg.  She has prescribed a different, milder, steroid cream (Eumovate) to the one I've been using since I was first diagnosed (Dermovate), which is a very much more potent one.  I am to use the new cream once a day for two weeks to treat the flare-up of itchiness, then gradually wean it off to occasional use.  I also regularly use a very good emollient cream, Epaderm, which helps with the dry skin on my legs.

So there we are, my lovelies, even more tales of health woes ~ basically I'm just falling to pieces 😏  I have to go back for another round of blood tests in a couple of weeks, and hopefully things will start to look a tad brighter soon! 

You s